The guitarist who invented the twangy sound of rock ’n’ roll

Duane Eddy coaxed a twang from the electric guitar that nobody had ever heard before. His rhythm-centric, reverb-heavy style made him the first guitar hero and helped center the instrument as the anchor of rock ’n’ roll. The self-taught musician sold millions of records in the 1950s and ’60s, led by hits like “Rebel Rouser,” which later appeared in the 1994 film Forrest Gump. From 1958 to 1963, he had 15 top-40 hits. He was so enamored with echo that he once brought a 2,000-gallon water tank into a studio, placing a speaker in it to create an echo chamber. Yet he was never tempted to sing. “I never felt that I had a good voice for singing,” he said. “When I was young, this frustrated me a lot, so I took it out on the guitar.”

Born in Corning, N.Y., to a working-class family, Eddy was playing guitar by age 5. By 19, he was touring as a guitarist for “Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars,” and soon after began recording as a solo artist with a backing band. He couldn’t read music, but “he had a strong ear for pop idioms” and focused on developing his signature style, said The New York Times. Many of his albums included “twang” in the title.

The 1963 arrival of the Beatles signaled the end of the era of instrumentals, and Eddy’s solo career began to wane. But his influence never did. “Few did more to encourage a new generation to take up the guitar,” said The Guardian. Echos of his style can be heard in the playing of guitarists from Jimi Hendrix to Bruce Springsteen. Eddy played on Art of Noise’s Grammy-winning remake of his “Peter Gunn” TV theme in 1986 and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. And he kept on recording into his 70s. “You gotta love the music,” he said in 2012. “You gotta want to play so much it hurts.”